


Mountains to Climb

by Tabithian



Series: Blackbird [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:26:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason wakes up covered in cats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mountains to Climb

Jason wakes up covered in cats. 

“The hell - “

“Ah, you're awake.”

Jason turns his head to see Selina watching him, arms crossed over her chest and this _look_ her face. 

“I'd think twice before saying anything you might regret,” she says, just as Jason feels the tiny pinprick of cat claws dangerously close to delicate areas.

“What are you doing here?” he grits out between clenched teeth. He can feel Selina's amusement as he carefully dislodges the cats sprawled over him. 

He recognizes most of them as the strays from around the neighborhood. Nothing more than scrawny little bags of bones until Tim showed up. Now they're spoiled little brats, colonizing the building's fire escape and rooftop and their damn apartment when Tim leaves the windows open.

“I'm just doing someone a favor,” Selina says, plucking the smallest cat off his legs. 

Jason starts to tell her he doesn't need a favor from her and curses himself for forgetting. It's not as though he can, really, given the way he feels, the bandages under his clothes, but. It doesn't quite mean the same thing to him, now does it.

Jason got _hurt_ , and Tim. Tim's never vicious when he goes out with Jason, always sticks to what Bruce and Dick taught him to take out whatever lowlife he's up against, but Jason got hurt. Not a bruise or bullet graze or shallow slice from a knife. Something serious enough to take Jason down and not let him get right back up again to head into the thick of the fight, and Tim.

Tim's not the same person he used to be. He's a harder now, colder. Nothing like Jason, not even close, but. He's lost too many people for something like that to not affect him. 

Tim took care of Jason, made sure he was going to be okay, and then. And then Jason can't remember, but the way he feels, the way his mouth tastes tells him Tim drugged him, and that.

“Where is he?”

Selina scratches the ears of the fleabag she's holding, a raggedy looking calico with mismatched eyes. One of the newer additions to Tim's little herd of cats.

“And that's where the favor comes into play,” she says, setting it down where it trots up to him and meows loudly.

Jason ignores it, bigger concerns on his mind at the moment, like where the hell Tim got off to, for starters.

Selina's watching him carefully, Tim's cats crowding her feet.

“Where is he?” Jason repeats.

That nets him an assessing look, and slight curve of Selina's lips. “I'm rather fond of him,” she says, getting to her feet. “Be sure to take better care of yourself, for his sake if nothing else.”

Jason watches her leave, not all that surprised when the cats follow.

All but one.

“Fucking hell,” Jason says, looking down at the calico. 

********

“What do you mean you lost him?” Dick asks.

Jason rubs the bridge of his nose because there's a time and place for everything, and now is not the time or place.

“You're right, Dick,” he says, lowering his hand to look at Dick. “Allow me to rephrase: the little shit's driving me fucking crazy.”

Because he is, and when, when, _when_ did Jason get so damn attached?

Demon spawn scoffs, lip curling up, and Jason has had enough of this. 

He thought it would be a good idea to go to Dick since he keeps insisting he and the others actually care about Tim. That, and Jason's trying for Tim, which means dealing with their seriously messed up family.

“Sorry if I thought you might know where your little brother is,” Jason says, knowing he's undoing all of Tim's hard work, but it's not like he's here to stop Jason. “Obviously Tim was wrong about you giving a damn about him.”

Unfair and the words cut way too close to home – if anyone should know where Tim is, it should be Jason, now shouldn't it?

Jason doesn't bother sticking around to see Dick's reaction, just dives over the side of the roof and the hell away from them, even though its murder on his injuries, but Tim's not there to see that either.

********

Jason's well aware he's not qualified to judge if Tim's life now is an improvement over what it was not so long ago, but. Tim had seemed. He didn't seem broken, the way he'd been when he first showed up on Jason's fire escape.

He seemed to be doing pretty damn good for himself, even with Jason in the picture. He'd made friends with the other people in the building, and there was the way he looked after the damn cats. The way he looked after _Jason_ , nagging him to eat healthier. ( _I'm doing this for your own good, you're a french fry away from a heart attack, Jason._ ) Poking and prodding him about being more careful. ( _You could have avoided that knife, Jason, I know you could have._ )

Their family doesn't know where he is. The Titans don't know where he is. If Selina knows, she sure as hell isn't telling. 

“This is a fucking mess, isn't it?” Jason asks.

The calico meows agreement, and fuck if that doesn't say everything about Jason's life right now.

********

Tim's done. Well, fine, he hasn't done something like this before, but he has disappeared on Jason once or twice.

Usually after something happens – a bad case or the anniversary of something in Tim's life. Something that makes him run, and after the first time, Jason learned to let it be. 

If Tim feels up to talking about it, he will, if he doesn't. It's _Tim_. Jason's not going to get him to talk if he doesn't want to. All he can do is be there when Tim gets back, and just doing that's hard enough because Jason's a mess all on his own.

“I seriously don't know why he comes back here,” Jason says. He's wearing Tim's stupid apron and chasing the calico around the apartment because it has the duster and Jason's not really sure when this became his life, but here he is.

Here he is, because Tim's nowhere to be found and someone has to keep the place from reverting back to its natural state.

“Hey there,” he hears, coming from the down the hall. “What do you have?”

Jason's heart doesn't do something as stupid as skip a beat, but he sure as hell doesn't take his damn time getting down the hallway that opens up into the living room.

Tim's standing with the calico in his arms, feather duster still clamped tight between her teeth. He looks up when he hears Jason and. Smiles, ducking his head a little and cooing at the cat. 

“Hi, Jason,” Tim says, like he didn't fall off the face of the planet for over two damn weeks. “I'm home.”

Jason _looks_ at him, hit by relief and anger and the low ache in his chest he thought was from the hit that sent Tim running _flares_ because Tim said _home_. And Jesus, that shouldn't affect him the way it does, it really shouldn't.

“She's your responsibility now,” Jason says, walking over to Tim. “Little princess thinks she runs the place.”

She does, actually. Moved right in like she thought she had the right to, little claws digging into Jason’s heart right next to the marks Tim left without Jason realizing. 

Tim laughs, quiet and amused and Jason pulls him close, that ache in his chest easing just the tiniest bit. “Idiot” he mutters. “Don't do that again.”

“I can't promise you that,” Tim says, words muffled. “You know that.”

Maybe not, but Jason's trying for Tim, and this needs to be part of that.

“I'll try to be more careful, okay?” he says. It's all he can do, Gotham's unpredictable at the best of times, and it's not like Jason's her favorite. 

Tim drops his head against Jason's shoulder. “Okay,” he says, and by the way he does, Jason thinks it just might be.


End file.
